


the ones that got away

by pickledragon



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Multi, Pre-Poly, Redemption, Team as Family, Warnings for individual chapters, i create my own canon, less dark than the tags make it sound, we just deal with the messed up childhoods that canon gave us
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:35:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22944871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pickledragon/pseuds/pickledragon
Summary: "So, is this a thing now?"Rapunzel, Eugene, and Cassandra grew up and survived, despite everything. On what they carry and what they leave behind. And maybe, what they find in the process.A series of interconnected one-shots.
Relationships: Cassandra & Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider (Disney), Cassandra & Rapunzel (Disney: Tangled), Cassandra/Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel, Cassandra/Rapunzel (Disney: Tangled), Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider & Rapunzel, Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel
Comments: 21
Kudos: 102





	1. On adoption

**Author's Note:**

> will update hopefully every week! thanks for coming on this ride with me :D apologies if not everything is accurate, canon is hard to keep track of at times. will add chapters as chapter count expands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As kids, trying to find a place in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse

Cassandra spun around in the practice room and slammed her sword into the dummy with all the force an angry thirteen-year-old could muster. Which, given the occupation of her father, was quite a lot.

The dummy took the beating but came out a lot worse for wear. A cheer came from the guards training nearby and Cassandra flushed with satisfaction.

She looked hurriedly up to her father, who was standing on the balcony to observe practice. It had taken a solid month of training in a beginner class (with seven-year olds she’d surpassed when she was five), to even convince him to let her train in the practice room. See? she tried to tell him with her eyes. She how much I could improve, how hard I’ve been working?

Aside from a small furrow in his brow, the Captain didn’t respond. He gave a small nod, then turned around and left the room.

Cassandra couldn’t hide the tears forming in her eyes, so she ran to her room to avoid talking to anyone ever again. She curled up in a ball and almost threw her sword across the room before her father’s voice chimed in her head, telling her to take care of her weapons.

She took a deep breath in and needed his advice. While she’s polishing her sword, she lets her mind wander. There has to be _someone_ out there that would believe in her. Not her old Mother, or her Father, but someone. Somewhere.

\-----

Eugene was officially the king of the orphanage betting ring.

Even though they were all technically siblings, they’d taken it a step forward and turned their group of adventure lovers into a group of friends. They’d had to: none of them would ever get enough to eat with the varying qualities of their caretakers.

But sometimes, they had pocket change. Unrelated, they also had a steady supply of used adventure novels from the local library. These two facts collided in quite possibly the most convoluted series of bets any kid had ever seen.

Amounts ranged anywhere from a penny to a small fortune, on every single detail in the newest book to come out: who the twist villain was (there was always a twist villain), the hero’s daring escape method, or even the amount of times “smirked” was used in text.

Eugene was so good at predicting the adventures he could write them himself. He spent most of his time in the orphanage reading as many adventure novels as he could get his hands on. It was currency, but it was also his only escape.

Arnwaldo hopped on the bed alongside him while he was diving into the newest (for him, anyways) novel of his favorite series. “Whatcha reading, Eugene?” He turned the cover around so she could read it. “Flynn Rider, huh? Sounds cool!”

Eugene grinned. “I bet it’s exactly like what my parents do! They’re so busy they can’t even come back, for fear of attack!” Arnwaldo nodded along, utterly convinced.  
“They’re fearless adventurers! Daring swashbucklers! And I’m gonna be just like them. And you will be too!” Eugene handed the book to Arnwaldo, who flipped through the pages. There were always great pictures too.

“All these guys are kings though! Or princes in disguise. How am I gonna be your partner?” Arnwaldo frowned, turning the book around in her hands. “Not everyone can have cool parents like you.”

“You don’t need a past to be a legend,” Eugene scoffed. “One day, I’ll be the greatest thief in all of Corona! You’ll be my right hand man, and then we’ll all live in a castle somewhere! No parents needed!”

Arnwaldo looked up at him with stars in her eyes. “Do you mean it for real?”  
“I promise.” Eugene crossed his heart. “We’re a family, aren’t we?”

\-----

A kingdom away, Rapunzel was on her hands and knees, scrubbing a stain on the carpet.

It was her fault, Mother had come in… angry. Gone straight to the mirror to stare for the next few hours, and Rapunzel knew if she touched the basket of food she’d brought before Mother gave the go ahead, Rapunzel would get a lot worse than no dinner.

And then Mother had asked for her extra makeup bottle from the counter, and Rapunzel had tripped over herself to get it, literally, and now there she was, glass digging into her knees as she tried to remove all traces of the foundation from the rug.

She didn’t get dinner that night, but at least Mother didn’t yell. Only spoke with steel in her voice and sent Rapunzel up to her room.

Sitting on her bed that night, staring at her celling covered with a couple small stars she’d started painting, Rapunzel wondered if her old family had loved her. Mother always said they’d abandoned her, sold her off for her hair, like everyone else would. And Mother would never lie to her.

But here, in the middle of the night, at ten years old, Rapunzel let herself wonder.


	2. On building

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After everything, breaking the ice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thus begins the requested 3-chapter bomb! enjoy pls :)) hope y'all are stayin safe and stayin inside!  
> also, heed the chapter count. the one shot ideas keep growing holy shit

Eugene and Rapunzel took their time making their way back to Corona, after all was said and done. Gothel was gone, somewhere where she couldn’t hurt anyone anymore. And it wasn’t like the Royal Guard was after them anymore (well, mostly). It was like their previous journey, but with no time limit. They stopped back at the Snuggly Duckling and got drinks and they somehow dipped their toes in every river in a 50 mile radius. They stopped to look at flowers and kiss, and generally tried to find footing in this new reality with nothing to run from.

Rapunzel couldn’t stop feeling the back of her hair, like touching the physical proof of the absence would make her actually process its loss. It was a weight off her shoulders, literally, but it was also something different, something new on top of the world’s most chaotic week. Everything changed in a heartbeat, and her hair just felt like the most reachable thing that she needed to renegotiate.

“So, when we introduce you as the lost Princess, I’ll say I rescued you, and that should keep me off the hook where our good old buddy the noose is concerned,” Eugene rambled to the air. They were holding hands, just because they could, and Rapunzel took a thrill in it. Small actions that didn’t mean anything, but meant the entire world at the same time. She nodded in agreement, and Eugene went spiraling into an alternate story, in which they made a daring escape from Corona, followed by bandits and guards too exaggerated to mirror any sort of reality.

They might reject her, she knew. For all of her life, she’d built herself on resolutions. Finding out what the glowing lights were, finding the one thing that would make Mother actually happy. And then, finding a friend. But right here, right now, winding through the woods with Eugene by her side, it didn’t feel like this would be a resolution to this story. 

It felt more like a beginning.

\-----

When Cassandra was assigned to be Rapunzel’s lady in waiting, she almost screamed, right then and there. She’d spent her whole life trying to claw her way into the Royal Guard, and now that her father might slightly think she was ready, she was shoved back down to be a servant for some sort of long-lost, privileged princess. 

She wanted to hate Rapunzel so much, but that all vanished about an hour after meeting her. She was hardened and naive, in all the wrong places for a princess, long lost or not. Rapunzel was magnetic, pulling in everyone from thieves to visiting dignitaries, and fiercely independent. And above all, she took Cass seriously. No one else had been able to do that much.

Rapunzel was a contradiction, a whirling tornado attempting to bash through the walls built around it. Cass did her best to support her, but despite not hating her as planned, Rapunzel and Cass clashed quite a lot. They had different views on the proper approach in life, on hypothetical battle, on adventure, on relationships. They spent most of their time together arguing, Rapunzel trying to crack through Cassandra’s cultivated, frosty exterior. She resisted, but the more they saw each other, the more they talked, Cassandra could feel herself warming to the princess.

One time, she followed Cass down to the training room, armed with a cast iron frying pan and Cass couldn’t help but be dubious about its effectiveness. She was prickly that day, not wanting Rapunzel’s antics to reflect poorly on her. But she shouldn’t have worried, Rapunzel showed real potential. Her father even said so when she saw him next, a comment that made her inexplicably proud until he moved on to mention a member of the Royal Guard thinking about retiring. 

She filed away the information for future planning, and made her way back to Rapunzel’s room for a so-called ‘dramatic reading of an up and coming play,’ performed by her and Eugene. She got roped into the drama, like always, and found, getting fake-stabbed by Eugene, that no part of this had turned out as planned.

Cass, as much as she’d like it different, was the type to fall fast and hard. It was a month or two into working with Rapunzel, hearing her laugh echo through the corridor, helping inspire her paintings, arguing with her about administration, reluctantly being a dance partner when the mood struck, that Cass realized she was thoroughly and utterly screwed.

She was in love with the Princess of Corona. And said princess was utterly, completely taken.

\-----

There was something missing, Eugene was sure, all those years on the run from the law. Not just the same bed to sleep in, or eating actual meals, or the experience of not living payout to payout, but something more invisible than that. More vital.

Rapunzel was like the second half he never knew he was missing, and they argued and fought and teased and bicker but they slotted together like two puzzle pieces.

He proposed as a joke the first month they’re dating and she rejected him with a wagging tongue and a smile as big as the sun. They made a habit of it, the joke proposals, always more elaborate. Rapunzel started recruiting her handmaiden, unwillingly, of course, and those were the first instances that Eugene met Cassandra.

She was standoffish and rude and entirely distrustful of anything to do with Eugene, which, to be fair, were not traits unfounded nor unique to her. He cracked jokes, pulled her along into misadventures, because no matter how much he may have wanted to avoid her, she was important to Rapunzel, and therefore important to him.

And despite everything, she grew on him.

The first time he saw her smile, he was too thick to know that something had changed, something he couldn’t take back. Eugene, on one said misadventure, had the bright idea of lighting a bright red candle he found in a castle closet, not knowing it was an explosive, and at Cass’ yell, proceeded to toss it into a river, where the largest fish any of them had ever seen proceeded to gulp up the explosive and swim away. It was a stupid scenario and a stupider mistake, and Eugene prepared himself for the verbal castigation. To his surprise, he heard a snicker. 

Eugene turned to Rapunzel, but she was still staring in confusion where the fish disappeared. It was Cass, her snickers turning into guffaws, with a smile slowly spreading across her face. “Not—,” Cass gasped for breath, “A word. It’s just so…” she wiped her eyes, “Ridiculous, I can’t believe…”

Rapunzel was giving him a look that he couldn’t decipher, that he didn’t even want to try, so they just kept looking at each other, a fondness for their companion? friend? growing in their hearts.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> find me at learningthomas.tumblr.com or instagram.com/_pickle_dragon


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